Unique month

[Dave Davison]

I just got an email from a friend in NewZealand informing me that October this year has 5 Fridays...5 Saturdays & 5 Sundays, apparently this only occurs every 823 years so we are witnessing something very rare. Nothing whatsoever to do with computers but just thought it a bit of trivia that might interest someone.

[HansV]

Unfortunately, that's not true - see Bigaldoc's reply to Post 29970. The previous time this happened was in 2004, and the next time will be in 2021...

[Dave Davison]

thanks for the correction, I will point my friend to the Snopes page and tell him to pass it on to whoever gave him the duff information Cheers Dave.

[VegasNath]

Unfortunately, that's not true - see Bigaldoc's reply to Post 29970. The previous time this happened was in 2004, and the next time will be in 2021...

Did this not happen in January this year?

Good to have you back, hope you had a great holiday!

[Bigaldoc]

Did this not happen in January this year?

Yep! Amazing how stuff starts around the web and blows all out of proportion.

[Leif]

Did this not happen in January this year?

Personally, I've never know October happen in January....

[VegasNath]

I must admit that I also passed this on. And felt like a right idiot afterwards!

[HansV]

5 Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in a calendar month is not exceptional at all - it occurs in every month with 31 days that starts on a Friday. As noted by Leif, the claim was that 5 Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in October is exceptional, although it's easy to check that it occurs 4 times in every 28 years (with intervals of 5, 6, 11 and 6 years).

(Thanks, I had a marvelous holiday in Italy)

[PaulB]

5 Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays in a calendar month is not exceptional at all...

Exceptional, no, impossible yes.

[HansV]

Oops - thanks for pointing out my mistake!

[mbarron]

Starting this year and the 823 years into the future, the number of occurrences are actually (by month)

Code: Select all

January  120
March    118
May      119
July     120
August   117
October  116
December 115

I did this little bit of Excel code when my niece sent me the same email.

Code: Select all

Sub FiveFriSatSun()
    Dim i As Integer, j As Integer, k As Integer, l As Integer
    For i = 2010 To 2833
    l = 2
    j = j + 1
                Cells(j, 1) = i
        For k = 1 To 12
            If Weekday(DateSerial(i, k, 1)) = 6 And Day(DateSerial(i, k + 1, 0)) = 31 Then
                Cells(j, l) = Format(DateSerial(i, k, 1), "mmmm")
                l = l + 1
            End If
        Next
    Next
End Sub

[Argus]

Did this not happen in January this year?

Yep! Amazing how stuff starts around the web and blows all out of proportion.

I agree Al. If someone says that about October, or August, or January, wouldn't the first thing you do be to check another month? And then you would find out, as mentioned by Hans and several, that there are many, in fact all with 31 days, if you accept another combination of days, say Sunday - Tuesday. Then the next step is what Hans mentioned, the intervals, the pattern.

Anyhow, how about this; 1712 February had 30 days in Sweden, and 1753 it had only 17 days, 18-28 February never existed, we moved to 1 March.

Our calendar has not that many intervals that stretch that far; ten years ago we had one, 2000 was a leap year (in the Gregorian calendar), a "century leap year", and 1600 was; next time around will be 2400.

[BobH]

There were calendar changes in colonial America, too. I couldn't remember the details. I found this googling:

http://www.ancestry.com/learn/library/a ... ticle=3358

I'm glad I wasn't around then to try and keep up with the changes.

Just imagine doing all that with quill and ink?

[DaveA]

An example of an early Quaker date might be: 2/10/1720 (with 2 being the second month). This date should be interpreted as 10 April 1720.

Since I have reviewed some Quaker records I am always getting the date WRONG. Here today we can NOT agree on how to read a numbers only date, m/d/y or d/m/y. That is why I spell out the month and then NO ONE can read the wrong date in my family research data.

[Bigaldoc]

In most or many circumstances in the USA we seem to use the mm/dd/yyyy method (sometimes even with yy) but in circumstances of an "international" nature, such as here in Eileen's or in software such as Revo Uninstaller that (I think) comes from Bulgaria, one has to carefully discern the format of the date, such as:

[HansV]

We deliberately chose the dd mmm yyyy format (e.g. 16 Oct 2010) as default for Eileen's Lounge because the abbreviated name of the month and the four digit year make it unambiguous - it should be clear to everyone, regardless of their local date format.
However, registered users can change the date format to suit their own preference in the Board Preferences tab of the User Control Panel:

x359.png

See PHP: date - Manual for an explanation of the format codes one can use.

[Bigaldoc]

...the abbreviated name of the month and the four digit year make it unambiguous ...

Absolutely perfect choice! It's only when "all numbers" are used that ambiguity jumps into the picture...

(PS corrected your spelling in this quote)

[HansV]

(PS corrected your spelling in this quote)

I have corrected the original too - thanks for pointing out my error!

[BobH]

Having been in IT long before the Y2K issue became one - and having spent a year fixing code and files - I adopted the ddMmmYYYY format for dates a long time ago. It is unambiguous and it facilitates sorting for ascending descending presentation.

Where I find difficulty is in trying to get dates commonly formatted. I, too, do some family history research. Until someone points me to a better method, I do my best to convert pre-1753 dates to modern calendar dates and use the form above then note the original date in notes appended to my records. My fear is that descendants who might stumble across these records might be confused by copies of documents dated by the old calendar but recorded in the new.

[DaveA]

For Family Research it is recommended that one uses "Double Dating" this way those who do NOT know, MAY ask, what it is all about.